Alcohol

A few years ago I was out drinking and a friend told me that my behavior was the same as usual. I’d had probably three drinks (an immense amount by my standards), and I certainly felt different, i.e. worse. Sometime since then I decided against wasting time, money, and health on a drug that (to me) tastes unremarkable-to-awful and produces boring side effects.

I’m still puzzled by why we bother ingesting substances that are ‘acquired tastes.’ What’s wrong with the tastes we already have? Are they not challenging enough? Is this a grass is always greener scenario? Is it because ‘acquired tastes’ are mostly drugs/poisons that trick the brain?

Pickles

On the other hand, once I decided to acquire a taste for pickles, and that proved to be a good, forward-thinking decision given their ubiquity in burgers.

How I hate fun

I’m going to be a serious fun-killer here, and point out how messed up it is that a good portion of fun activities for adults involve and/or require drug use. It’s even an expected activity for the workplace. That’s crazy! Professional organizations expect and support unnecessary drug use. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll write about why I hate coffee too.

Alcohol might be benign and funny for most people, but a significant number of adults (1 in 12 according to the NCADD) ‘suffer from alcohol abuse or dependence.’ That’s an insane amount of damage to our society. And for what? For lowest-common-denominator fun? For drugging away our inhibitions and stunting our development of real bravery? For filling voids where more fulfilling activities belong?

I don’t mean this to be a judgmental post. Everyone should feel free to have fun, and I have my own mindless fun-but-not-fulfilling activities. But at a societal level, where work and dating and friendship are so heavily influenced by a drug, I’m sure there’s something wrong.